Sponsored Sends: How to Make "Expensive" Email Marketing More Cost-Efficient | iContact

We all know that email marketing is one of the most powerful and cost-efficient methods of marketing your organization to an engaged and therefore receptive audience. But not all organizations have the advantage of a well-managed and healthy email list. For them, email marketing is like most other forms of marketing – expensive.

Buying a List Is Not an Option

Buying email data is not an option – it’s against iContact’s (and most other reputable email marketing service providers’) terms and conditions. And even if it wasn’t, due to the lack of permission between you and the recipient, your campaigns just wouldn’t work and would be no better than spam.

Sponsored Sends – An Expensive Choice

So instead of buying a list, many organizations turn to sponsored sends (often referred to as list rental). This is where a third-party supplier (often a trade publication) sends an email to its own list on behalf of a paying client.

Because list owners want to protect the integrity of their own lists, sponsored sends are often limited in number and as a result are charged at a premium.

While some sponsorship opportunities are better than others, in general this is not a very cost-effective method of driving business. This is because you have flipped email marketing on its head and turned a highly efficient retention marketing strategy into a more expensive and less efficient acquisition marketing channel.

So Why Bother?

The basic fact is that email marketing works. If a sponsored send goes to a well-targeted group of recipients who are interested in the campaign topic, it can drive significant sales and other engagements.

But remember – this should never be seen as a long-term strategy. Your own list will always yield better results for you. If you find yourself buying sponsored sends from the same organizations again and again, you really should ask yourself: What are you doing?

Take Ownership

It is vital that you take ownership of any email subscribers that you engage via a sponsored send. This means collecting data (and using it yourself) from any engagement via a landing page or eCommerce transaction.

Remember: Once you have a relationship with a subscriber and they have given you their email address, you have permission to contact them with your own campaigns.

So stop blindly sending expensive sponsored campaigns and start building out your own lists. Only then will you enjoy the truly efficient power of email marketing.